Phil Dalhausser

Phil Dalhausser
Dalhausser in 2007
Personal information
Full name Philip "Phil" Peter Dalhausser
Nickname The Thin Beast
Born (1980-01-26) January 26, 1980
Baden, Aargau, Switzerland
Hometown Ventura, California, U.S.
Height 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m)
College(s) UCF
Beach volleyball information
Current teammate
Years Teammate
2015–present Nick Lucena
President George W. Bush pauses with Dalhausser and teammate Todd Rogers as he visited the practice session Saturday, August 9, 2008, at Beijing's Chaoyang Park prior to their first matches of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.

Philip "Phil" Peter Dalhausser (born January 26, 1980) is an American professional beach volleyball player, playing as a blocker.[1] He and his former playing partner, Todd Rogers, were the 2007 AVP Tour and FIVB world champions.

Dalhausser and Rogers dominated both the domestic US tour and now the FIVB international tour winning #1 team honors on both tours in 2010. Dalhausser and Rogers were Olympic gold medalists at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. He also won gold in Rio for beach volleyball with a fellow FSU volleyball coach and competitive player.

Personal life

Dalhausser was born in Baden, Aargau, Switzerland, to a German father, Peter, and a Swiss mother, Marianne. His brother Mark lives in Brooklyn, New York. He now calls his hometown Ventura, California. He attended Mainland High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. Dalhausser did not start playing volleyball until his senior year in high school.

He attended the University of Central Florida and joined Lambda Chi Alpha, where he was named "Most Valuable Player" and received the William G. Morgan Award for most outstanding player. He earned a business degree at UCF and played for the club volleyball team.[2] After college, he worked for a concrete company and then worked a short time for a firm that painted stripes on Florida highways.

Dalhausser once had longer hair but shaved his head at the age of 21 as he preferred the clean shaven look.

Beach volleyball career

AVP

Dalhausser has previously teamed up with Nick Lucena.

At 6'9" (206 cm), Dalhausser led the 2005–2010 AVP tour in blocks. In 2005 he was sixth in kill percentage.[2]

In 2006, Dalhausser teamed up with Todd Rogers. Rogers, an 11 years veteran of professional beach volleyball, thought he needed someone to help him get to the next level and believed Dalhausser had the potential to become the best player in the world. Rogers plays two roles, both partner and coach to Dalhausser.[3]

In 2007, Dalhausser and Rogers won the Beach Volleyball World Championships in Gstaad, Switzerland, becoming the first U.S. beach team to win the gold medal at the tournament.

Olympics

Dalhausser qualified for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics to represent the United States with his teammate Todd Rogers by being the top seeded American team through the international qualification process.

Dalhausser and Rogers had a record of 6–1 in their first Olympics, being upset in their opening match by 23rd-ranked Latvia.[4] They proceeded to win the rest of their games, coming back from 6-0 in the third set to beat 20th-seeded Switzerland.

Dalhausser and Rogers won the gold medal match two sets to one against Márcio Araújo and Fabio Luiz Magalhães of Brazil. Newly crowned women's beach volleyball champions and compatriots Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh were watching from the stands in the final. Dalhausser made nine blocks in the championship match, with five coming in the deciding third set, putting the US up to a 9-1 lead and eventually winning it 15-4. Dalhausser was named tournament MVP. This made the United States the only country to win gold medals in men's and women's beach volleyball at the same Olympics.[3]

Dalhausser and Rogers failed to defend their gold medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games. The pair was ousted in the round of 16 by the young Italian team of Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo, losing in straight sets for the first time in their Olympic careers.

Dalhausser paired up with Nick Lucena for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, winning their debut match against Tunisia in straight sets.[5]

In the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena made it into the quarterfinals match where they played vs Brazil's top-ranked team of 6-foot-8 Alison "The Mammoth" Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt. There they were eliminated by a 2-1 (21-14, 12-21, 15-9) scoreline, by the hometown's favorite team.[6]

References

  1. "Dalhausser Continues on Successful Road". United States Olympic Committee. December 26, 2017.
  2. 1 2 "Bio: Phil Dalhausser" UCF.
  3. 1 2 Ackerman, Jon (August 21, 2008). Dalhausser "Rogers becoming May/Walsh like" Check |url= value (help). NBCOlympics.com.
  4. Evans, B. J. "Dalhausser, Rogers upset by Latvian duo". USA Volleyball. Retrieved August 25, 2008.
  5. "Dalhausser, Lucena win in Olympic debut as new partners". NBC Olympics. Retrieved August 7, 2016.
  6. https://sports.yahoo.com/news/dalhausser-lucena-eliminated-by-mammoth-effort-from-brazil-195121437.html
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.